DISSERTATION

Unearthing Pilgrimage Nationalism: A Reading of Hymavathabhuvil

SARATH KRISHNAN

Register No: 309

The Dissertation submitted to Kannur University in partial fulfilmentof the requirements for the
award of the degree of

MASTER OF ARTS in ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE

Department of Studies In English

Kannur University

May 2010.

Miss.Namitha Thalassery Campus

Member of Faculty

May2010

Department of Studies in English

CERTIFICATE

This is to certify that the project titled "Unearthing Pilgrimage Nationalism: A Reading of
Hymavathabhuvil" is an authentic record of bona fide work carried out by SARATH KRISHNAN, under
my supervision and guidance at the Department of Studies in English, Thalassery Campus, Kannur
University.

Miss. Namitha

Project Supervisor
DECLARATION

I, Sarath Krishnan, declare that this project work titled "Unearthing Pilgrimage Nationalism: A
Reading of Hymavathabhuvil"is an authentic record of project carried out by me and no part of it has
formed the basis for the award of any degree, diploma, associate ship, fellowship or any other
similar title.

Thalassery Campus

Sarath Kraishnan

May2010 4th semester M.A

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my guide Ms. Namitha for her support and
encouragement which enabled me to complete my work. I would also like to thank my dear friends
Mr.Saneesh and Mr.Anulal whose suggestions made my work more fruitful.
CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION-Routes of Travel: The Discourse of Travel

The spirit of travel has lived on down the ages. In recorded history, there have been instances
where by one is able to know that man has been travelling throughout the ages. Stories of sailors
trapped alone, under the unpredictable traps destiny had in store for them, in islands and unknown
lands, always marvelled the reading minds. There has been a written record or one of such tales
from the early Egyptian Empire, which proves the significance and relevance of undertaking analyses
and studies on travel writing. If for early (pre historic) human beings travelling was a means for
survival in the acute weather conditions and food shortages, for the people, later in the course of
human evolution, it became a socio-political as well as cultural need. However, this need often
mutated a propagandist pollination of cultural and social elements, for political purposes.

The stories about journeys are ample in epics as well as in religious texts. In the Bible, there are
instances and references for journeys undertaken by people. The Book of Exodus narrates such a
tale of adventure and 'divine' mission, of Mosses. The Indian epic Ramayana is nothing but the
'Ayanam' or 'the travel of Rama', the prince of a mighty kingdom.

According to Peter Hulme the latest significant shift in travel writing can be dated to the late
1970's and associated with a trio of books, the best known of which is Bruce Chatwins', In Patagonia'
(1977). This book appeared a just year before Edward Said's Orientalism, which is the canonized text
of analysis regarding the post colonial studies(qtd.in Hulme,Youngs,2002).

"One of the most persistent observation regarding travel writings, is its absorption of differing
narrative styles, and genre, the manner in which it effortlessly shape-shifts and blends any number
of imaginative encounters, and its potential for interaction with a broad range of historical periods,
disciplines and perspectives" (qtd. in Glennhooper p.3). According to Raban (1987) "Travel writing
accommodates the private diary, the essay, the short story, the prose, poem, the rough note and
polished table talk with indiscriminate hospitality…." (qtd. in Clark p.1). As mentioned earlier, travel
narratives often predominate the voices of the referent, with its, often conspicuous, colour of the
home culture. This arrests the question of reliability on the narrator.

Present day analyses of travel writing are significantly influenced by Foucauldian perspectives as
well as postcolonial arguments put forward by Edward Said in his book Orientalism. The concept of
Apodemic Literature (Ars Apodemia-Art of travelling) concerns itself with travel writings. The
expounder of this concept was an Austrian critic named Justin Stagl. Stagl defines Apodimic
Literature as works in which the central concern is providing systematic rules useful for travel and
observation. Apodemic literature "Is a literature, which is written and consumed with the precise
intention- on both parts-of affecting behavior"(qtd. in Jack,Phipps.p79).
 Travel writing, being a socio cultural endeavor, foregrounds the religious undertone in being a
narrative of the journey that was in part adventure, or travel, in part spiritual salvation and part of
the gains brought back were indulgences remissions of the temporal punishment for sin. That is why
Wolfgang Neuber called travel literature as 'Devotional literature'(qtd. in Martels).

Travel narratives in India can roughly be put into two groups; one dealing with the foreign
countries, particularly England; the other about our own country, and mostly deals with Himalaya
and Kashmir (Sisir Kumar Das) during the 19th century onwards, we can find travel narratives which
concentrate more and more on Hindu religious centers , in almost all the regional languages. This
was developed as part of the National freedom Struggle, in which certain places and certain stories
are selected to construct a homogenous Indian nation. This project tries to analyze M.P.
Veerendrakumar's Hymavathabhuvil (2008) as a representative text which presents this aspect of
Indian nationalism.

The term 'Pilgrimage Nationalism' is used in the project to refer to the practice of visiting places
of national importance (Delhi, Meerut, Jalian Valla Baugh) in the similar fashion of pilgrimages. This
can also mean the practice of considering religious pilgrim centers as the soul of nation. In India,
Hindu religious centers get unusual importance in the public sphere.

Most of the contemporary travel narratives valorize Hindu religious centers and triy to construct an
India based on Vedic Dharma. Through these narratives they argue that Indian nationalism and
Indian Freedom Struggle are originally with a Hindu base and that the historians have neglected this
aspect of freedom struggle. Before analyzing the arguments of Hindu nationalists, the very concept
of nationalism should be understood and how the Euro-centric notion of nationalism becomes the
defining feature of Hindu nationalism.

The Politics of Nationalism

The Age of nationalism in the modern sense of the word is a recent phenomenon. Some
historians argue that the age of nationalism developed in the 18th century in the West, and emerged
at a later period as a universal political concept. According to Kohn, it was only between
1815and1920, that the political map of Europe was redrawn, while the political map of Asia and
Africa changed between 1945 and 1965 (Kohn 1968). Before this period nationalism with its present
implication did not exist; there were city-states, tribal groups and dynastic states and empires
(Phadnis.Ganguli,2001). The study of the development of nationalism is one of the most
controversial subjects in different disciplines like Anthropology, Political Science, Cultural studies
etc.. Most of the contemporary critics agree on one ground, that is, nation is simply a construction.

Ernest Barker defined a nation as "a body of men, inhabiting a definite territory, who normally are
drawn from different races, but posses a common stock of thought and feeling acquired and
transmitted during the course of a common history; who on the whole and in the main, though more
in the past than in the present, include in that common sock a common religious belief, who
generally and as a rule use a common language as the vehicle of their thoughts and feelings; and
who, besides common thoughts and feelings, also cherish a common will, and accordingly form or
tend to form, a separate state for the expression and realization of that will".(Phadnis,Ganguli,2001)
But one of the basic requirements for identifying and ethnic group as a nation is the desire of its
members to become a politically autonomous entity. The development of an ethnic group in to a
nation will be a collective desire which is the result of some political threat or a fear of losing the
values or belief system that the ethnic group holds for years.

Marx and Engels engaged with the issue of nationalism in the middle decades of the 19th century,
in other words, during the period in which the bourgeois revolution was being completed across
Western Europe, North America, and Japan. They argued that the working class should support
national movements and the formation of new nation-states where they would hasten the
development of capitalism, and consequently the experience of working class, and where they
would weaken the great reactionary powers of Europe, the most powerful of which was absolutist
Russia. Even though Marx and Engels discuss the issue of nation-building from the beginning of
Marxist movement itself, Marxist analysis of nation never was a serious issue.

The first serious attempt to study the formation of nation-states was done by Benedict Anderson. In
his book Imagined Communities (1983) he argued that nationalism is "a radically changed form of
consciousness". "It is imagined because the members of the smallest nation will never know most of
their fellow-members, meet them, or even hear them, yet in the minds of each lives the image of
their community". ( Davidson,2007) Different writers including Otto Bauer (in The National Question
and Social Democracy, 1906) and Anderson himself have studied the role of capitalism in the
development of national consciousness. Anderson, while developing his idea of 'Print Capitalism'
says that it "gave a new fixity to language which in the long run helped to build that image of
antiquity so central to the subjective idea of the nation". And they created "language of power",
with certain dialects plying a dominant part in communication through printing. They were "largely
un-self conscious process resulting from explosive interaction between capitalism, technology and
human linguistic diversity". Anderson identified three main kinds of nationalism, arising in successive
waves; they are 'Creole Nationalism', 'Language Nationalism' and 'Official Nationalism'. Creole
Nationalism is associated with the revolt of the American Colonies, Language Nationalism with
Western Europe, Official Nationalism with Central and Eastern Europe and Asian- African anti-
colonial movements(Davidson,2007).
 In his book Nationalism,(1960) Kedourie emphasized the fluid character of national identity,
which rendered national self determination "a principle of disorder". Eric Hobsbawn also discusses
the emergence of national consciousness in the similar way as that of Anderson. He talks abut
'Invented Traditions' by which he mean a set of practices, normally govern by overtly or tacitly
accepted rules and of a ritual or symbolic nature, which seek to inculcate certain values and norms
of behavior by reputation, which automatically implies continuity with past. In fact, where possible,
they normally attempt established continuity with a suitable historic past. However, in so far as
there in such reference to a historic past, the peculiarity of 'invented' traditions is that the continuity
with it is largely fictitious. In short, they are responses to novel situations which take the form of
reference to old situations, or which establish their own past by quasi-obligatory repetition. Hobs
Bawn argued that all invented traditions use references to the past not only for the cementation of
group cohesion but also for the legitimation of action, and that historians in the present should
become much more aware of such political uses of their work in the public sphere.

From the abovementioned arguments, we can sum up the points like this: i.e., nation is not a god-
given or sacred idea, but simply a social construct, and every society tried to build up an image of
nation based on the dominant cultural practices existing in that society. In India the dominant
religious group is Hindus, and Hindu ideologues argue that India is a Hindu nation and all other
groups including Muslims, Christians, Dalits should accept Hindu values, in order to be 'Indians'. The
major arguments of Hindu nationalism can be analysed as follows

Hindu Nationalism

Nationalism in India emerged under colonial conditions; conditions that put Indian civilization
itself on trial as the principal impediment to modernity and self rule. A key component of colonial
Indian elite configurations of primordial nationalism was Aryanism, which in the Indian context
represented the synthesis of several intellectual strands arising from British and Germen
Orientalism, and from process of upper cast, religious, regional and vernacular elite consolidation in
colonial India. India was consigned to an otherworldly and decidedly pre-modern position, and has
pointed out moments when reactions to colonial and orientalist characterization lead to other
versions of Hinduism as the indigenous cultural repository of identity and value. This process too
lead to a variety of allegations on Islam, as foreign invador and a colonizing power that had subdued
a Hindu nation and prepared the way for British colonial rule(Dirks,p.255).

The 19th century gave rise to a variety of what are often called 'Neo-Hindu' strands.But the focus
on a strictly 'religious reformation' elided a grandeur process and the thinking ability of nationalism
for some was primarily figured from with in a new Hindu religious and ethicized framework such
that, by the turn of the century, nationalism and Hinduism can be spoken of as synonymous, even by
tendencies that was seemingly opposed to sectarian communalism and Hindu
majoritarianism(Bhatt,p.16). It was not just the idea of a majority that was new but also the use of a
single term "Hindu", to designate a population that ranged so widely in belief, practice, identity and
recognition. "Hindu" began as a general designation for the people of a place, but little by little it
was affiliated to normative conditions that were oppositional (to Muslims or Christians), exclusive
(of trebles or untouchables), and confessional (in the sense of a world religion)(Dirks,p.255). New
voices emerged as representatives of socio-political constituencies that saw the Hindu whole as
hierarchical, oppressive, and graded the precipitate of a politics of exclusion that endangered groups
"within" as much as out side." The constitution of minorities in colonial India served both to justify
the colonial state, which legitimized itself in part through its claim to offer protection to minority
groups that were seen as endangered, and fashion the majority as homogenous group. In so far as
many of these currents had apparently European origins, or were influenced by Western Intellectual
discourses, Nationalism in colonial India can be conceived as ' derivative discourses' (P. Chaterjee
1986), or as 'Catacheness' (Spivak 1993), as an example of 'Hybridity' (Bhabha 1994), and indeed
were 'invented traditions' (Hobsbawn 1983)"(qtd. in Bhatt,p.8).

The rise of a distinctive Hindu Nationalist ideology and political movement with a coherent
ideology of Hindu exclusivity, supremacy and nationhood is usually traced in historical scholarship to
the troubled and violent period from 1919 to the mid 1920's. It was indeed in 1923 that V D
Savarkar's founding statement on Hindu identity, "Hindutva-Who is a Hindu? "was published. In
1924 Swami Shraddhananda published his Hindu Sangadhan-Saviour of the Dying Race. During this
period the new militant Hindu group RSS formed. The tangible relation ship between Hinduism and
Indian nationalism, articulated primarily through a civilization and cultural discourse of archaic
Vedism supplemented by a politicization of devotionalism, had been politically and discursively
established in the later decades of the 19th century. The reform leaders like Lala Lajpat Rai, Bipin
Chandrapal, and Bal Gangadhara Tilak started politicization of religious dogmas. Bipin Chandra pal's
1901 essay 'Reform on "National lines"' explicitly advocated "the thought structure of the Aryan
fellowship as key components that distinguished nationality in India (and ancient Greece) from other
nationalisms"(Bhatt,p.41). Lala Lajpath Rai declared that "the Hindus are a nation in themselves,
because they represent a civilization all their own" (1899). Dayananda Sarswathi believed that the
Aryans were the original inhabitance of the world, living first in Tibet and then after separating from
the ignoble, unvirtuous, lowly and ignorant dasyas, moving to uninhabited India or Aryavarta.
Aurobindo developed his concept of 'dharmic nationalism' based on Aryan or Vedic ideas.

The Gandhian era witnessed a serious development of Hinduisation of politics. Religious reform
coupled with political action was one of the most important tactics used by Gandhi. Indian National
Congress and Mahatma Gandhi directly involved in Hindu reform movements. In other words; the
secular politics of Indian Freedom Struggle became more and more Hinduised and 'Hindu' issues like
Vaikkom Satyagraha became 'national' issues. E.V.Ramaswami Naikkar criticized this change of
Congress politics. Earlier he supported Congress and was a staunch supporter of Gandhi. After
Vaikkom Satyagraha he declared "no Gandhi, no Congress, and no religion" (Dirks,2008) as his motto
and became a prominent leader in Tamil Nadu. Not only Gandhi, but even the patrician social
democrat, Jawaharlal Nehru used religious symbols and categories to garner support. In his
Discovery of India (1946), despite his English education and his modernist and internationalist
sympathies, Nehru struggled with sentimental images of blood-line, landscape and nurture to
express his feelings for India, its history and people.

Post-independent India also concentrated more and more on Hinduisation of politics. Indira Gandhi
became a symbol of Bharat Mata. The extremist religious parties gained control. The Bhartiya Janata
Party was formally launched in February 1980, after split of the Janata Party on the RSS issue. BJP is
a reincarnation of the Jana Sangh, the Hindu Nationalist Party founded by Shyama Prasad Mukherjee
in 1951. The party adopted four fundamentals: one country, one nation, one culture and a rule of
law that would determine its future course of action. Secularism, for the Jana Sangh, was simply a
disguised policy of Muslim appeasement. The ideological background of BJP is very much influenced
by the early Hindu Renaissance of 19th century (from Tilak to Aurobindo). In 1998 BJP declared that
"our nationalist vision is not nearly bound by the geographical or political identity of Bharath but to
refer by our timeless cultural heritage. This cultural heritage, which is central to all region, religion,
and languages, is a civalisational identity and constitute the cultural nationalism of India which is the
core of Hindhutva. This we believe is the identity of our ancient nation 'Bharatha Varsha'…… the
evolution of Hindutva in politics is the antidote to the creation of vote banks and appeasement of
sectional interest"(Bhatt,p.149). Recently, the involvement of BJP leaders like L.K Advani in the
abolition of Babari Masjid proved in the enquiries of judicial commission.

The Supreme Court of India emphasized the difficulty of defining the terms Hindu, Hindutva and
Hinduism, in 1995. But even now political parties and organizations use these terms for political
games. BJP and its sub organizations like RSS emphasized the need for strong Hindu nation. The
ideological background of these organizations was given by people like Shyamaprasad Mukherjee, K
B. Hedgewar, Deen Dayal Upadhyaya and M S. Golwalkar. They used the writings of V D. Savarkar,
Swami Dayananda Saraswathi, Swami Vivekananda and Sri Aurobindo to form theoretical
background for their movement. Earlier congress party and other secular movements supported
these people to gain political power. Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru inducted Shyamaprasad
Mukharjee - godfather of modern Hidutva and Hindu nationalism-in the Interim Central Government
as a Minister for Industry and Supply. He resigned from his office on April 6th 1950, as reaction
against the Indo-Pak mutual agreement.

M S. Golwalkar, the Extremist Hindu Militant leader accepted ideas even from German Nazism.
His works We or Our Nationhood Defined(1938), and Bunch of thoughts (collection of his articles) (
1966) clearly shows his extremist ideas. At one point of time he declared, "To keep up the purity of
the Race and its culture, Germany shocked the world by her purging the country of the Semitic
Races-the Jews. Race pride at his highest has been manifested here-Germany has also shown how
well nigh impossible it is for Races and cultures, having differences going to the root, to be
assimilated into one united whole, a good lesson for us in Hindustan to learn and profit by", and
"ever since that evil day, when Moslems first landed in Hindustan, right up to the present moment,
the Hindu nation has been gallantly fighting on to take these despoilers. The Race spirit has been
awaking"(Wikipedia.org). These militant leaders criticize both Muslims and Christians as intruders in
the land of Hindus. Arun Shourie, a contemporary RSS thinker, in two recent books displaces the
authentic identity of Indian Christians who have chosen not to belong to the hierarchcal Brahmanical
Hinduism, and disparages the movement of Ambedkarism, which consciously unites Dalits to stand
against the Hindu nationalist conception of a 'free India'. Abhas Chatergee, in his The Concept of
Hindu Nation (1995) discussed the notion of a Hindu Rashtra. V. Sundaram in his review of this book
titled 'Cry for a Hindu Nation' says that, "those who say that we have to establish a Hindu nation, use
wrong words, the correct and exact word ought to be-The Hindu Nation Has to Gain Its
Independence". This dangerous idea shows that the present day Indian politic, history, literature-and
all other facets of life are contaminated greatly.

Travel Writings in India

As mentioned earlier Indian travel writings concentrate more and more on spiritual centers. The
earliest works includes Kasi Yathra Caritha (Telugu) in 1838, Himalayanopravas (1929) by Kaka
Kalekar. Rabindra Nath Tagore dominated the Bangali travel narratives too. His Japan Yathri(1919)
and Parasye (1936) narrates travel experience in Persia,and Rastyar Cithi (1930)is about Russian
experience. Tibbat Me Sava Baras (1933) is a Hindi travelogue by Rahul Sankrityayan. Early
Malayalam Travel Narratives were secular in nature which includes Varthamanappusthakam by P.
Thoma Kathanar, Bilathi Visesam (1916) by K P. Keshavamenon, Bhupradaksina Vrthantam (1938) by
N J. Nayar, Jnana Kanda (on Europe) by Kuttan Nayar (1936). The communist movement also
strengthened the genre. AKG's travel account on Russia, Nan Oru Lokam Kandu (1954), K M.
Panikkar's Apalkaramaya Yathra (1944) on Europe and his Rantu Cainayil (1956), Caina Munnottu by
Joseph Mundassery are earliest examples of Secular Malayalam travel narratives. But one writer
who is famous especially for his travel accounts is S K. Pottakkatt and regarded as Ibnu Buttutta or
Marko Polo of India. His travel account consists of roughly 2700 pages.

The dominant nature of Malayalam travel writing is not secularism, but religious ideas. The
progressive movements and secular thoughts do not affect the religious aspect of travel narratives in
Kerala. The Sandesa Kavyas are some of the earliest imaginative literature in which we can find
lovers sending messengers for their wish fulfillment. But the first travel narrative in Malayalam is
Dharmarajavinte Rameswarayatra (author unknown). This followed a series of travel narratives
which includes Kasiyatra Vivaranam (Vykkom Pachu Moottatu), Rameswarayatra (Venmani Achan),
Kasiyatra (Paliyath Cheriya Kunhunni), Kashi Yatra Rappotta(Kottayattu Govinda Menon), Oru
Theertha Yatra(Tharavath Ammalu Amma), Kailasayatra, Himagiriviharam (Thapovana Swami), the
list goes on. From these examples we can see that the genre called travel narrative is dominated by
pilgrims and religious centers. The contemporary travel narratives too reflect these devotional
elements.

Indian writers modeled their travel narratives on Western ideologies. For them, as mentioned
earlier, travel narrative means Devotional Literature. The second chapter of this dissertation
focusses on the travel narratives on India, written by of Western authors. This study clearly shows
the idea that the image of India as essentially spiritual and Hindu, came from the Western writers.
Their idea of India was full of contradictions; exotic but spiritual, mysterious but enchanting. This
binary, which Indian writers wanted to destroy, became the very base of our own writers. Even now,
for our travel writers India is essentially spiritual. After the liberalization policies of the government
during 1990s, there is a widespread demand for travel narratives based on spiritual centers. There
are travel narratives, travel sites, blogs and other internet resources which club travel writing with
tourism. Writings of this kind include Nasik Kumbha Mela: A Spiritual Sojourn by Govind Swarup
(2003), Kumbha City Prayag (S.K.Dubey 2001), and Gateway to the Gods: Haridwar, Rishikesh,
Yamunotri, Gangotri, Kedarnath, Badrinath (Rita and Rupindra Khllar-2004) etc. Hymavathabhuvil
comes in the same category of these religious travel narratives.

The main chapter, of the project discusses the text Hymavathabhuvil written by M.P.
Virendrakumar, the socialist veteran from Kerala. Hymavathabhuvil attempts the symmetrical
representation of India, which is akin to the cultural identity of Hinduism. This symmetry realizes
itself into a geo-political identity of India, which is essentially hinduized. This can be treated as an
attempt to justify the terminological identity of 'Sanatana Dharma', attributed to the Indian
tradition. The pretext of diversity, in the socio-political-cultural space of the country, is thus
transmutated in to homogeneity: which stresses on Hindutva as a socio-political-cultural neuron,
which stimulates and runs the whole nation. This dissertation does not aim at a critique of the wider
concept of nationalism. However, it observes and analyses the homogeneity of identity attributed to
the concept of nationalism: the projection of Hinduist identity to India; within the purview of
Hymavathabhuvil.
CHAPTER 2

Demystifying the Image of India: A Post-colonial Reading of the Travel Narratives about India by the
Western Authors.

"[T]here is nothing more consistent than a racist humanism since the European has only been able
to become a man through creating slaves and monsters". Jean Paul Sartre (1967)(qtd. in Clark)

One of the most persistent observations regarding travel writing is its absorption of differing
narrative styles and genres, the manner in which it effortlessly shape-shifts and blends any number
of imaginative encounters, and its potential for interaction with a broad range of historical periods,
disciplines and perspectives. The description of people, their nature, customs, religion, forms of
government, and language is so embedded in the travel writing produced in Europe after the 16th
century, that one assumes ethnography to be essential to the genre(Youngs,Hooper,p.242). As travel
itself has changed- physically as well as in terms of its perception- so too has travel writing altered,
reflecting the shifting aesthetic and cultural fashions of the days as well as the power inequalities
that lie between East and West, the history of empire, and the gendered spaces of home and
abroad.

The 1978 publication of Palestinian critic Edward Said's starkly titled Orientalism- almost
contemporaneous with Arab Anthropologist Talal Assad's edited volume Anthropology and the
Colonial Encounter and American feminist philosophers Sandra Harding's' and Helen Longino's first
papers on 'stand point epistemology'- initiated for the English speaking public an epistemological
shift that would transform the study of culture and cultures. Said had been reading Foucault, and
found in the concept of 'discourse' a magic key to the problem of Western imperial domination of
'the East'(Youngs,Hooper,p.265).

There are two dimensions intrinsic to post-colonial theory. The first, as a colonial discourse analysis,
examines European culture and literature for how the West produces representations of its others,
against which and through which it defines itself. The second examines the ways in which the
contradictions and inconsistencies of colonial discourse produce a locus of instability from which the
central epistemological, ontological and legislative terms of the West can be challenged.

Travel writing has been identified by many of its more discerning critics as a mode of colonial
discourse that reinforces European norms. In her study Imperial Eyes: Travel Writing and
Transculturation (1992), Mary Louise Pratt demonstrates how travel narratives have helped, directly
or indirectly, to produce "'the rest of the world' for European readerships at different points in
Europe's expansionist trajectory". (p .5). Pratt considers travel narrative as a "contact zone" by which
she means "the space of colonial encounters, the space in which people geographically and
historically separated come into contact with each other and establish ongoing relation, usually
involving conditions of coercion, radical in equality and interactable conflict"(p6). She developed the
term "anti -conquest" to refer to "the strategies of representation where by European bourgeois
subject seek to secure their innocence in the same moment as they assert European hegemony….. In
travel exploration writings these strategies of innocence are contributed in relation to older imperial
rhetoric of conquest associated with the absolutist era"(p7). David Spurr, identifies travel writing as
one of those "discourses of colonialism" by which "one culture comes to interpret, to represent, and
finally to dominate another". Ali Behdad sees his study of 19th century European travel writing as
contributing to what Homi Bhabha calls "mediation". Inderpal Grewal traces the multiple discourses
of travel in 'Euro-imperial' visions of 'home' and 'harem'-"spatial constructions", as she calls them,
that "metaphorically and metonymically construct home and away or empire and nation at various
sites in the colonial period through gendered bodies"(Glage,2000 p.37). The post-colonial is both an
index of anti-colonial resistance and a codeword for the neo-colonial process by which cultural
othernesses assimilated, reproduced, and consumed. Historically, travel writing has capitalized on
exotic perceptions of cultural differences: it has made a virtue of, and a profit from, the strangeness
of foreign places and cultures, delivering up to its mostly white metropolitan reading public what
Paul Fussel calls "the exotic anomalies, wonders, and scandals (………) which their own place or time
cannot entirely supply". Clearly, travel writing at its worst has helped support an imperialist
perception by which the exciting 'otherness' of foreign, for the most part non-European peoples and
places is pressed into the service of rejuvenating a humdrum domestic culture. Nelson Graburn
argued that the modern experience of travel "has antecedents and equivalence in other seeming the
more purposeful institution such as medieval student travel, the Crusades, and European and Asian
pilgrimage circuits"(Glage,p.38).

The description of peoples in their variety was one of the most valued parts of the narratives of
travel that proliferated after the Renaissance, both for the entertainment value of the depiction of
curious behavior, and for the philosophical issues which this evidence for variety raised about the
existence, or not, of universal human traits. The European ethnographic impulse was the product of
a unique combination of colonial expansion and intellectual transformation. On the back of the
growth of travel writing both ethnography and ethnology, were, in fact, crucial to the Enlightenment
project of a world-historical science of mankind.

Much of the theoretically informed writing on travel and travel writing has had to do with
imperial periods of later 18th, 19th, and early 20th centuries, in which the geographical surveying of
the globe as well as the anthropological investigation of its non-metropolitan or 'city less' (aporoi)
peoples produced so much knowledge in the service of so much desire for power and wealth.
Historians and historicist literary critics like Francis Jennings and Michael Nerlich, and historical
anthropologists and ethno historians like James Axtenn and Marshall Sahlins studied the travel
writings of this period(Youngs,Hooper,p.209).

For all its claims to precision and unprejudiced observation, the naturalist science of the 18th
century was often conditioned by ideological debates in which scientific and philosophical
pretensions seemed to work against commonsense, so that native people may emerge as care free
noble savages or childish, sexually weak American Indians, often un recognizable to more
experienced observers. The emergence of 'scientific ethnology' under the impact of evolutionary
theories in the 19th century did not seem to help either. For a naturalist like Alfred Russell Wallace,
who to his credit spend 8 years in the Malay islands attempting to classify natives (along side plants
and animals) by learning languages and direct observation, there was no doubt that a very
interventionist colonial paternalism was the only means by which the various 'raises of savages', by
themselves uninterested in progress, could be prompted to cover the necessary states between
'barbarism and civilization'(Youngs,Hooper.P.250). One of the most striking sub-genres of the early
modern periods were sets of instructions for travelers to record what they saw in a methodological
fashion, through a number of 'heads' which could vary in emphasis but which tended to reflect those
same categories already present in the most systematic travel narratives of the period. It was up to
individual observers to bring their own education, experience, and intelligence to their ethnographic
practices. The problem here is less any lack of desire for scientific objectivity than the difficulty and
some times reluctance of many travelers to engage with native languages, belief systems, and
literary traditions. Europeans living abroad as Europeans especially is in dominant position in
relation to natives, were unlikely to become great cultural decoders unless motivated by a particular
scientific passion.

Post war travel writing has undoubtedly become more sensitized to ethnic stereo typing and
cultural condescension: structurally and generically, however, it refuses to religious its basic
prerogatives. The certifiably post modern strategies-duplication of quest, self mockery, and
melancholic under tones-cannot detract from a kind of constitutive affiliation. The invented past
through which the writer project his or her identity remains collective, formed by political and
historical sedimentation. Travel paradoxically foregrounds condition: part of the fascination of the
form is its pre inscription of role, its accuracy as reflector of cultural status (or lack of it).

Travel writing and India

Elizabeth Bruce Elton Smith's work The East India Sketch (1832) opens up with the question-'How
to write about India?' The conventions for representing India are already fixed, the genres well-
worn, and the land over-described. India is a land of Arabian Nights exoticism, a county unchanged
for 3000 years or a site to be mined for statistical information. It is an unchanging land where the
customs of biblical times persisted, where diabolical idols were worshipped, where men were
effeminate and widows followed the rite of Sati, sacrificing themselves on their husband's funeral
pyres. Indian military incompetence, the deficiencies of government an inherent submissiveness of
Hindus etc were the major themes in early travel narratives. This includes Jemima Kindersley's
Letters (1777), William Hodges' Travels in India (1793), and James Mill's History of British India
(1817).

Early English descriptions of Indian landscape are infused with aesthetics and the colonial
ideology. Ideas of what was 'sublime' helped travelers articulate specific colonial themes. The
aesthetics of the sublime, common to the 18th century Europe, embodied terror and vastness,
darkness and obscurity, danger and challenge. The English traveller negotiates the threatening
India's landscape of desolation, characterized by emptiness, vastness of ruins, absence of markers,
roads or cultivation, or excessive natural phenomena in 'three moments', according to Promod K
Nayar, "(A) the moment of self preservation in the face of threat from the landscape, when the
traveler describes the threatening landscape. This 'negative sublime', where the landscape is devoid
of markers or directions. The desolation frightens because there is no discernable meaning; (B) the
moment of affirmation, of the 'Hermeneutic sublime' (Weiskel), where the attribution of meaning to
the desolation by the English traveler asserts individual agency. (C) Finally, through acts of self
affirmation, the traveler moves from solitude to society from threaten to the safe. The narrative
concludes with the traveler in a state of relative safety, in a 'locus amoenus' or a 'landscape of
amenity' (Andrews 1999). Colonial ideology becomes more pronounced in (B) and (C) when English
man and woman suggest affirmative action or a transformation of the landscape, and desolation is
treated as a sources/site for 'improvement'. It is in this shift from (A) to (C) that colonial ideology
permeates landscape description"(Pramod.K.Nayar,web)

The English experience of India in the 1757-1820 period was not exactly one of comfort, stability,
or safety. The English faced several wars, charges of corruption, and infighting at the East India
House(London), mounting debts, and parliamentary investigations. Numerous English soldiers died
in battles or suffered imprisonment across India. The India affairs were described as 'embarrassed'
(Critical Review, 35, 1773) though it remained a 'precarious possession' (The Times, Feb.25, 1755). In
18th century travelogues, sublime and beautiful landscape are suggested by a set of opposites:
barren/cultivated, uninhabited/populated, uncontrolled/regulated, poverty-stricken/prosperous,
unsafe/safe, these opposites are also temporarily categorized, where the sublime features of
barrenness and emptiness are associated with an Indian past. Safety and prosperity are associated
with English activities in the present, while being directed towards the future.

George Forster opens his A Journey from Bengal to England (1798) thus: "the English should no
longer accounts themselves sojourners in this country; they are now, virtually its lords paramount,
and their policy should not be that of a day; but considering the opulence and wealth of the subject
as closely tending to enrich the common state, they should, at large support his wants, and
encourage his labour" (chapt; 1:3). Forster then envisages England's role in India: "as the welfare of
the British dominion in India ultimately depends on the prosperity of Bengal, no labour should be
thought irksome, no rational plan left untried, which may improve its revenue, or encourage its
past"(p.8). Here we can see that the English started considering India as a "possession".

Bernier's text, Travels in the Mughal Empire: A.D.1656-1708 was a primary source for certain
European writers from Montesquieu to Marx for their representation and characterization of
oriental despotism. The distinctive features of oriental despotism in their eyes were absolutist and
tyrannical monarchs who ruled over polities that lacked a hereditary nobility and private property in
land. The Mughal Empire of the 17th and 18th centuries was characterized by a devolutionary
distribution of authority among multiple lesser sovereignties, by a complex hierarchy of land tenure
and appropriation of product, by a developed system of commerce and by a tolerance and co-
existence of pluralistic sub-cultures. The current trend in theorizing about post-colonial societies is
not the representation of pre-colonial societies at the time of contact as oriental despotism was a
proto-colonial and colonial construction which served as a reason and justification for political
intervention, conquest and exploitation.

Travel writing under the Raj inevitably reflected the prejudices and social, cultural, and racial
arrogance that typified the common mentality of the imperialist. Sir Richard Francis Burton's travel
book Goa, and the Blue Mountains(1851), draws a fine picture of the Portuguese city of Goa, with its
narrow streets and numerous churches, as well as Ootacamund(Ooty), the British hill station, in the
Nilgiri mountains in South India. Burton delineates the local character of the Goans and the social
mores of the British forever partying in Ooty. His irresistible appetite for erotic adventure took him
to the village of Seroda and there is a suggestion that this marked the beginning of Goa's current
reputation for a sex-sea-sand-and-drug culture.

Flowers and Elephants (Constance Sitwell, 1927) depicting the fantastical East of the rajahs,
Rishis, and rituals formed a staple of the travel writing of British woman during the empire. In a
breathless survey of Indians and India she" envied them their beautiful tradition of clothes that goes
on century after century unchanged". The Magic Mountains (Kennedy, 1996) analyses the hill
stations as a special sphere of British bourgeois life.

In The Gorgeous East: One Man's India (1965), Rupert Croft Cook notes how upon his arrival he
"instantly took a new view of life and my whole conception of the earth and its races was given a
fresh perspective ….I loved India at sight and was passionately anxious about it". Before he slept on
that very first night he" knew that this, and no other, was the 'other country', the alter terra which
exist for every traveler". Tim Pigott Smith's Out of India (1986) was inspired by his initial contact with
the subcontinent when filming 'The Jewel of the Crown'in 1982, and is an anthology conceived "to
lead you through a series of impressions and feelings". The project was fuelled by Pigott Smith's
"own sense of intrigue", and the tone is nostalgic for the bygone days of British rule: "those
centuries are still there, the attitudes trapped in time, the actions held in space, a part of India-Not
forgotten-Not judged- Just there …..Still there".

The American writers Mitchell and Goshal, in their 20th Century India (1944) introduced "a
mysterious country of yogis (yogez) and snake charmers ", to the American reading public. Lisa
Hobbs, India, India (1967) reflected the then contemporary perception of the importance of Western
aid and primarily American aid:"what will happen when the Americans can no longer feed India".

Buddhist and Hindu temple architecture are high on many visitors' lists, reflecting a trend of the
1960's and 70's, epitomized by Beatles' tour of India (Snyder, 1972). Religion has always played an
important role in the Indian travel experience. It is apparent to even the most cursory observer that
spirituality is interwoven in the woof of Indian culture and civilization. Paul Brunton's A Search in
Secret India (1934), and Norman Lewis' A Goddess in the Stones (1991) reflect Indian spirituality.
CHAPTER 3

Beyond the Saffron Horizon: A Scaffolding of the Pretext

Travel narratives as a well established literary genre was developed in Europe as part of
colonialism. As discussed in the first chapter, colonial Europe constructed the 'other' as exotic
dangerous east, as part of colonial expansion. The idea of an India which is the center of spirituality
also developed during this period, by the European historians. As the European historians argued,
before the coming of the westerners, India does not have a history at all, except the highly
imaginative literature in the form of epics, puranas etc and also the well developed Sanskrit
literature of Kalidasa and Bhasa. The idea of a mystic India later developed as an idea of a well
formed spiritual greatness of India. The project does not try to argue that the whole Vedas and
Upanishads were developed by westerners, instant the modern idea of Vedas and Upanishads were
greatly influenced by western thinking. The idea that India was the cradle of all civilizations(can be
seen in the works of Voltaire, Herder, Kant, Frederich Schlegel among many others) or the original
home land of humanity (in the works of Schlegel, Schelling, even Hegel), that Hinduism represents
humanity's primal philosophy (in Herder, Schlegel), or that Hinduism offered redemption for
contemporary humanity(in Schopenhauer), even that 'humanism' itself could be conceived as
resulting from Hindu values (in Herder), as well as the associated ideas that privileged a
transcendental cultural epistemology of a 'national soul' above any determination of the
state(variously Herder, Fichte, Renan among others) were widely disseminated in Europe. During the
independence struggle the notion of 'greatness' became more popular, as a resistance to 'white
man's burden'.

In virtuality every high cultural system, be it the Indic, the Islamic, the Sino-Japanese, or the
Judeo-Christian, the literary tradition has, though in vastly different forms and guises, developed in
intimate-indeed, often intertwining-relation to religious thought, practice, institution and
symbolism. Scholars have frequently suggested that certain genres of literature, notably poetry and
drama may have arisen directly from religious rituals. Some times in a particular culture, as in the
case of ancient India, literature may be the principal record of a religious tradition. To students of
the Indian tradition, it is entirely appropriate, indeed even common place, to assert that religion
provided both form and substance for virtually all of its classical literary culture. So invisible are the
two phenomena that the authors of a modern introduction to Indian literature feel compelled to
state that "until relatively modern times in India-meaning by India the Indo-Pakistan subcontinent-it
is sometimes difficult to distinguish literature from religious documentation. This is not because
there has been an imposition of a system of religious values on the society; it is rather because
religion in India is so interwoven with every facet of life, including many forms of literature that it
becomes indistinguishable". (Anthony C. Young)
 In Hymavathabhuvil, we can find out the close connection between religious ideas and literature.
As Z. R. W. M. von Martels noted, travel narratives or an ideal travel narrative is expected to provide
both instruction and moral improvement. Modern travel narratives also give such a vast religious
education. M.P.Virendrakumar, author of Hymavathabhuvil says that the origin of Indian civilization
can be traced in the banks of rivers like Ganga, Yamuna, Bhagiradhi, etc.(Introduction xi). Through
this text Virendrakumar articulates the universalized concept of nation as expounded by the
religious majority; i.e. the Hindus. The nationalist icons are culled out from the pantheon of the
'cultured' or from the tradition of the majority. The popular motives of the Indian nation, for
instance, are invariably invoked from the classical art or the texts of the upper caste religion. Such an
identity excludes the cultural practices of the marginalized. An exclusivist view of cultural identity is
thus fore grounded, which, given the immense variety in cultural practices in India, leads to a
disjunction between the national and the popular. Moreover, whichever form the exclusion takes-
class, caste, or religion-tends to violate the culture of other sections of society, leading to cultural
oppression and denial. This is particularly true of the ongoing attempt to construct a national
identity based on Hindu religious cultural past.

The emergence of communalism as an ideology of political mobilization, the concept of nation

and nationalism had become matters of contention. This meaning is being reordered and their
character is redefined, thereby raising the question about the relationship between the cultural past
and the national identity. The era of enlightenment, the coming of modernity and the early phase of
national liberation struggle had witnessed a critical introspection about the relationship. Both
individuals and society were then engaged in identifying the cultural location; it is largely recognized
within the context of the plural and composite cultural legacy. The quest then was to create a nation
out of the diverse groups owing allegiance to different racial, linguistic and religious affiliations. It is
undeniable that the identity of the nation cannot be divorced from its cultural past, but given the
internal cultural differentiation and the convergence of various cultural streams in Indian society the
cultural path is not monochromatic in its make up.

Fernard Braudel, while discussing this issue says that "a nation can have its being only at the price
of being for ever in search of itself, forever transforming itself in the direction of its logical
development, always measuring itself against others and identifying itself with the best, the most
essential part of its being; a nation will consequently recognized itself in certain stalk images, in
certain passwords known to the initiated( weather the later are the elite on a mass of people, which
is not always the case); it will recognize itself in a thousand touchstones, beliefs, ways of speech,
excuses, in an unbounded sub conscious, in the following together of many obscure currents, in a
shared ideology, shared myths, shared fantasies. And any national identity necessarily implies a
degree of national unity, of which it is in some sense the reflection, the transposition, and the
condition". ( qtd. in K.N.Panikkar)

"The 'nation ever in search of itself' - Braudel suggests, is bound up with a variety of factors,
which contribute to the making of its identity. It is a complex process in which the conception of the
people about themselves and their environment, the organization of their social life and the
constitution of their ideological world are important ingredients. In other words, how people
perceive themselves as belonging to an identifiable entity, in relation to others, possessing certain
essential qualities and recognizable through widely shared images. Such a perception of the nation is
intrinsically linked with historical experience, changing over a period of time according to the
realities of social existence. The formation of national identity is therefore a process by which the
people come to share, imagine, and believe in certain common interests and traits. The nation is not
born, it evolves"(K.N.Panikkar).

The knowledge of the territory constituting India as a nation has involved over a period of time.
This evolution can be understood in two ways. First, the different stages through which the sub-
continent was identified as a territorial unit, as spelt out in different texts, produced by elite groups
or individuals. Second, is a more difficult and demanding effort: mapping the understanding of the
variety of people who inhabited different parts of India. The earliest expression of the knowledge of
the territory of the sub continent can be traced to the Vedic period. On the basis of the geographical
information available in the Rig Veda it is reasonable to assume that the Aryans did not know the
country beyond the Vindhya Range and the Narmada. The concept of Arya Varta was confined to the
territory between the Himalayas and the Vindyas. The Southern part of the sub continent came into
reckoning only during the later Vedic period. The Kishkindha kanda in Ramayana contains a fairly
broad conception of India as a whole, setting it off from the surrounding countries. This detailed
information is significant enough, but more important is the conception of the sub continent as a
geographical unit, by envisioning it as an equilateral triangle divided into four smaller equal
triangles, the apex of which is Kanyakumari and the base formed by the line of the Himalaya
Mountains. The knowledge of the sub continent as a territorial unit does not seem to be part of the
Tamil consciousness before the seventh century. If that is so, the territory of the sub continent
entered the historical consciousness of the people at different points of time and there fore not a
part of uniform national memory.

Whether the national is popular, to borrow a terminology from Antonio Gramsci, would depend
the nature of identity of a nation. Generally the nation is the preserve of the dominant and therefore
identified with the culture of the dominant. Thus the culture of the dominant caste or religion
becomes the marker of national identity. Anti-casteism was an important agenda of almost all
reformers, even if compromises were not unusual in actual practices. This transformation within
social movements facilitated the construction of homogenous communities, attempting in the
process to erase the internal cultural differences within the community. The nationalist view of
communal ideologues is remarkably similar to that of the colonial in their conception of the
composition of Indian society. They make a distinction between those who were 'born from the
womb and those who were adopted', suggesting two categories of citizens on the basis of birth.

Among the Hindus it can be traced to a search for shared intellectual and cultural sources through
philosophical 'conquest' as in the case of Adi Shankara's 'Digvijaya'. The significance of Sankara's
'Conquest' was not limited to sectarian triumph of or the establishment of monism as a superior
system, but of providing a common point of reference and intellectual rationale for forging a Hindu
identity. Hymavathabhuvil presents a detailed summary of the achievements of Sri Sankara (p631).
In these pages the author outshines even the Hindu fundamentalists. For elaborating and
disseminating the religious ideas,the social elites give maximum emotional support, through
popularizing religious institutions and pilgrim centers.

The contemporary religious resurgence as we see in this travelogue, is continuation of the Neo-
Hinduism (in the 19th century)-religious revival and consolidation by privileging the hegemonic texts
of the Hindus and thus constructing a common cultural and intellectual heritage. The contemporary
religious resurgence not only draws up on this past, but also seeks to resurrect institutions and
cultural practices from the past. In the process a highly differentiated 'community' is being turned
into a homogenous entity.

Virendra Kumar views the entire Himalayan region through the eyes of upper cast Aryans. This is
exemplified in several passages of the work. Along with the cultural nationalists, he also argues that
the origin of the Indian civilization can be traced in the banks of rivers like Ganga, Yamuna etc.
(introduction XI). The author, while recreating the tales from epics and puranas, never attempts a
critical study of it, instead he presents those stories as if they are scientific facts. This effect is
achieved by mixing facts with fiction and thus transforming fictitious elements into facts. In the same
pages we can find out epics and facts from history. For example, while describing the Kurukshetra
War, he shows us a banyan tree which is as old as that period and says that the tree witnessed the
war (p12). And then he quotes the writers and leaders like Bal Gangadhara Tilak (p.12). All the
writers and historians quoted in this work are extremist religious leaders and Hindutva politicians.
Bal Gangadhara Tilak started politicizing Ganapati Utsav and thus destroyed the secular nature of
Independence Struggle. The author quotes Atal Bihari Vajpayee, V. D. Savarkar, M. G. S. Narayan,
etc. and presents them with a positive flavor.

There is always a comparison between the East and the West. West was considered as the
epitome of materialism and the East as that of spirituality (for example The Nobel Prize Acceptance
Speech of Rabindranath Tagore). This binary was started during the 19th century by the Neo-Hindu
philosophers like Swami Vivekananda, Tagore etc. In the present day also, travelogues, films, and
fiction celebrate this ideology of the right wing Hindu nationalists. While discussing the construction
of Swami Narayan Akshardham Temple, the author presents a young man, who participates in the
construction work by resigning his job in a multi-national company (p.180). Mahesh Yogi's
international fame and the subsequent visit of the music band Beatles are highlighted in the work to
present India as the spiritual centre of the world. Contrary to the contemporary controversies
related to the god-men, the author presents some god-men with a positive image. While discussing
the environmental issues, the author plays the same card. Religious pollution has been changed into
a religious issue (p65).
 There are apparent differences between each and every race in India. All the different races
process their own cultural practices and conventions. But the Hindu nationalists argue that the
whole Indian tradition is born in the banks of river Sindhu and all of us share a common cultural past.
But historians like Mortimer Wheeler give us a different picture. In his opinion Aryans were a
nomadic tribe and they destroyed Indus Valley Civilization. (chowk.com ) Edwin Brayant, in his Indo-
Aryan Controversy: Evidence and Inference in Indian History, (2005) presents both arguments. In
order to defeat the Dravidians, Aryans employed different tactics, including a clever strategy of
assimilation. They present a view that all Indians are from one single father. The story of Vararuchi is
a best example for this strategy. While discussing Har-Ki-Pauri, Virendrakumar gives as a detailed
picture of the family tree of Vararuchi. Vararuchi, Vikramadithya, Bhatti and Bharthruhari were the
sons of Govind Swami, a brahmin(p92). His four children represent four castes (Varnas), which is
from one single father, a Brahmin. Vararuchi has twelve children, ad each of themis brought up by
twelve different castes (p112). This is a story of assimilation of different castes into one single unit
and at the same time, of the Aryan invasion. Vararuchi's twelve children's were from Kerala (p118).
The story of the 'Parayi Petta Panthiru Kulam' is the story of whole India, according to the author.
Here, the centre of Indian civilization is again attributed to north India, to a Brahmin. Another irony
is that, while discussing the mythical, probably imaginative account of the story of Vararuchi, he
brings in the academic discipline of science too. This is for arguing that the puranas are really
scientific facts. This idea of scientific accuracy of puranas was questioned by theoreticians like Meera
Nanda in her works, Prophets Facing Backward: Post modern Critique of Science and the Hindu
Nationalism in India (2004), The God-Market (2010). Here in the case of Vararuchi, the author
himself says that Vararuchi is a contemporary of King Vikrmaditya, from centuries back. But when
the work provides proof to say that the son of Vararuchi, Rachakan was a scholar named Prabhakara
Mithra and pictures Vallon as Thiru Valluvar; and Naranathu Bhranthan as scholar of astronomy
named Haridathan (p124-135); the author is actually giving scientific colouring to the myths..

The author presents an interesting story of Kankhal. The myth associated with the temple of
Kankhal is that of Dhakshayagam (p165). The same Yaga is believed to have happened in Kottiyoor
temple in Kerala. Eventhough he mentions Kottiyoor (p175), he does not give enough reason for this
fact. Instead he considers this as an example of the homogenous nature of India. But there is an
argument among the people of Kerala that Kottiyoor was a Buddhist Temple and Aryans destroyed
it. The Aryans have replaced this narrative history with the story of Dakshayaga. At near by places of
Kottiyoor, especially in Mananthavadi, we can find similar Jain and Buddhist Monks, even now. I
have earlier mentioned the Sankara Dig-Vijaya, which isa perfect example of driving out the Buddhist
from India.

Another example of the strategy of assimilation of dominant Hindu values in nation building can
be seen in the description of Bharat Matha Temple (p161). The temple has six storeys and each one
designates the different 'Bhavas' of the goddess and the great personages in the Indian
independence struggle. In the first floor, we can find the idols of Buddha, Mahaveera, Guru Nanak,
Kabeer Das, Tulsi Das, Meera and Sankaracharya. In the second floor, there is Maharana Prathap,
Shivaji, Guru Govind Singh, Sardar Bhagath Singh; in the third floor, that is the Sati Temple, there are
idols of Sita, Savithri, Lakshmi Bhai; in the forth Nava Durga, Jagadamba, Meenakshi; in the fifth, that
is Vishnu temple, there is Radha-Krishna, Sita-Rama, Lakshmi-Narayan, and Badhari Nath; in the last
floor that is Siva Temple, we can find Nataraja, Ardha-Narishwara, and Uma-Maheswar. This is built
by Maharaja Ranjit Singh. This is a typical example of the Hindutva nature of Indian freedom
struggle. The processes of selection and exclusion have larger dimensions. One important thing to be
noted is that in the first floor we can see both Sri Sankara and Sri Buddha. Sri Buddha revolted
against Brahminic religion and Sri Sankara re-established it. This is the strategy of assimilation that
seems to accept the differences, but at the same time destroys the other. Through out the narrative
Virendrakumar presents information regarding the inter-related nature of Jainism, Buddhism and
Hinduism. This should be understood in the larger context of history. That is, even though Jainism
and Buddhism came into being as a reaction against Brahminic religion, Buddhism and Jainism
became prominent religions in India due to the conflict between Kshathriyas and Brahmins.
Buddhism became a major religion when Emperor Asoka adopted it as the official religion of his
kingdom. In other words, even though these religions have conflicting ideas, the worshipers remain
of one class, that is the upper class.

The Bharat Matha Temple is the best example to analyze the Indian freedom struggle. The
controversies that have arised in different parts of India with reference to the national song 'Vande
Matharam' may be cited in this context. This also shows the fact that the prominent feeling among
nationalists is that of Hindutva and not secularism.

The autobiographical elements in travel writing are crucial point in almost all the travel narratives.
Travel narratives use the elements of autobiography, memoirs and even journalism. But in
traditional devotional travel narratives, autobiographical elements are never highlighted. Even if it is
highlighted, it is for giving an added colour to the religious nature of travel. While discussing the
sacred nature of Yamunotri, Virendrakumar gives an example of the impact of Yamunotri on
pilgrims. He cites the case of Sreedharan Nair, one of the companions of the author, who was an
atheist till the day. From that day he visits Yamunotri Sreedharan Nair moves from 'physics to meta-
physics' (p261) and even writes a poem on Krishna. On another occasion the author criticizes
globalization and fast food culture of travelers who visit Hrishikesh, and impact of tourism on pilgrim
centers (p183). He laments that, this resulted in the loss of the sacred nature of the place. He
himself is a tourist but always tries to distinguish himself from others. At one point of travel, a saint
criticizes them for the destruction they cause (p299); and the authoragees with him and criticizes the
other travelers.
Conclusion

The dominant ideologiy which forms the national consciousness of India is Hinduism. This
dissertation argues that travel narratives especially Hymavathabhuvil not only reflects this dominant
ideology but becomes a tool to construct such a national consciousness. Earnest Barker, among
other theorists observed that a common history, common religious beliefs, common languages etc.
are some of the characteristics of a nation. The western educated leaders of India, whether it is
Gandhi or Nehru, tried to construct an India based on Euro centric ideas. They failed to realize the
fact that the Euro-centric concept of nation is unsuitable for India, since India is constituted of
multiple languages, races and religious groups. Modern thinkers like Anderson realized the
constructiveness of nation, but even now our national leaders consider nation as something sacred.
As Gandhi argued for a national language that is Hindi, modern Hindu ideologues argue for a
national religion that is Hinduism.

The Euro centric idea of god, nation, and religion always focuses on the principle of oneness . Sri
Sankara also emphasizes the oneness of god. But for the postmodern critics plurality is the defining
idea behind every thing. This plurality is what constitutes India and not homogenetic. While
analyzing Hymavathabhuvil, this dissertation tries to argue that, the underlying features of this text,
and most of the present travel narratives, is the Hindu nationalist ideology. In the post-globalised
world, travel narratives become another tool of the Hindu nationalists in emphasizing their ideology.

The term 'Pilgrimage Nationalism', as used in this dissertation, is centered on the fact that
pilgrim centers of particular religious groups becomes places of national importance. One similar
term, 'pilgrimage tourism', is developed in the the discipline of tourism studies also. Pilgrimage
tourism refers to tourist policy which concentrates on pilgrim centers. Travel and tourism are related
subjects, in the sense that, the development of one leads to the development of the other. Recent
resurgence of travel literature is associated with the marketization of religious centers.

The first title of Hymavathabhuvil was 'Thalarunna Thazhvarakalum Varalunna Nadhikalum'; the
present title is suggested by Sukumar Azhikode. The meaning of 'Hymavathabhuvil' can be roughly
translated as 'in the land of Lord Himavan'. This shows that the religious colouring of the title was a
conscious effort on the part of the author. . Recently the 21st edition of Hymavathabhuvil has been
published in Kerala. One of the reasons for the popularity of the work is that the author is a famous
personality; Virendrakumar is a socialist veteran, Managing Director of Mathrubhumi Ltd., Chairman
of Press Trust of India,and Environmentalist . But the most important reason behind the success of
Hymavathabhuvil may be because he successfully understood the market value of travel literature.
Or may be because, Mathrubhoomi Daily from its beginning to the present, supported the
nationalist movement in India.
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